There are many kinds of mistakes you can make in the field of search engine optimization, but there are also typical things among them, which occur more frequently during work. The most common in this article 5 SEO hiba familiar, and there is a solution for all of them.
1. Slow loading page
Page load speed is a critical factor, since it’s not just Google that prefers fast websites, but after a few seconds of waiting, visitors navigate elsewhere as well. Therefore, this task must be solved in any case.
Depending, where is the problem, different solutions can be found. Google PageSpeed Insights doesn't just show you, what needs to be improved, but also offers tools for this: https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights/
- Image size, file size and type: The pictures take up a lot of space, therefore, they slow down the page. Not usually worth it at Full HD (1920x1080px) use better pictures, because most monitors don't know higher resolutions anyway. Modern file formats, than JPG2000 and WebP take up less space on the server, this will also speed up your site.
- Redirects are very useful, but too many redirects can slow down the page drastically, and links in an endless loop can completely freeze the browser.
- The HTML code is responsible for the operation of the website, for design CSS, and JavaScript for interactive elements. However, we have as many lines of code as possible, the more time it takes for our page to appear. Therefore, simplify the lines of code, it is necessary to compress and merge, this also achieves drastic acceleration.
There are also free extensions for WordPress for the above three issues, Autoptimize, for example, can dramatically improve load speeds.
2. Duplicate content
Although the Google does not specifically penalize that content, which are already listed elsewhere on the Internet, it does not give them an advantage either. For this reason, it is not worth copying texts from the net, this can cause copyright issues anyway.
It's also worth knowing, that Google’s algorithm is getting smarter, therefore he recognizes, when we rewrite certain parts of certain content by automatic means. Because they do it, that they use cognate expressions of words, and this is what the search engine giant’s artificial intelligence finds. In this case, we are not talking about literal duplicate content, but very similar, of SEO it has no advantage either.
If we have such an article on the site, it often occurs, that Google will only crawl it, but it does not index, do not use. That may be the solution, if we start to significantly rewrite existing content, but in many cases it is better to make a brand new article. If a unique entry is added to the page, it will no longer be duplicated, and can promote a SEO our aspirations.
3. Missing image alt tags
Images with missing alt tags are also a common SEO mistake, as it is mainly tempted by modern content management systems, to upload the file with just a few clicks, and let’s not deal with the other things.
Yet alt tags serve several purposes. When the image cannot be loaded for some reason, then this label will appear in place, so the visitor doesn’t just encounter a broken image icon. They are also used by visually impaired reading software, therefore, with their setup, we can do a lot for the ergonomics of our site. And finally, Google also analyzes their content, thus obtaining a better picture of the particular material. It gives us an opportunity anyway, that using the appropriate terms in the alt tags, make the keyword mix of the page richer. So you should fill out such labels, because they bring SEO benefits.
If you use a CMS, such as WordPress, there you can specify the alt tag for the image properties. If, on the other hand, we build our page in HTML, then we simply need to specify the source of the images in this way: <img src = "image.jpg" alt = "this is where the content of the label comes from" />
4. Outdated content
Content creation is a subfield of SEO, whose work can never end. You have to be careful, that some articles may become obsolete relatively quickly, if we do not update their text. This can degrade our search engine optimization results in two ways, Google detects old content, and start downgrading your rankings in the hit lists. And the organic traffic coming in until then is fading. Moreover, too much outdated content spoils the credibility of your entire site, and, on the whole, may be detrimental to your judgment.
The other thing, which can worsen our rankings, that is the behavior of the visitors. They will detect it, that the reading on the page is no longer current, therefore, they will quickly move on to the next Google search. This increases the bounce rate and reduces the time spent on content. Both values are used by Google in its ratings, this is how our ranking results deteriorate.
The best way to avoid outdated content, if we regularly review our materials. If there are many of them, then you need to focus on them, which bring the most visitors or are valuable for some other reason. Another approach is to use evergreen themes, they never become obsolete, so you don't have to keep them updated.
5. Bad links
We don't have much influence on that, if the content we link to disappears from the internet over time. But there it is, if there are any internal links within our own site, which point to a subpage that has since been deleted or renamed. Following these, visitors will receive errors, which degrades the quality of the site.
It's also worth knowing, that Google crawls our site many times by visiting links, and if you often make a mistake, it will detect it. There is usually a certain amount of resources as well, which the search giant intends to crawl our site, if we waste these on broken links, then Google will be slower to get to the really valuable parts.
There are several tools to help you find broken links. You can see it under Coverage in the Google Search Console, what 404 errors the search giant found on our site. This is the error code, which appears in the browser for non-existent URLs. We have nothing else to do, how to collect these links, and treat them. And there are many on the Internet, there is even a free service, where it is enough to enter the address of our website, and automated software goes through the content, and collects all broken links.
Redirection is a common way to deal with the above problem. If we have renamed or relocated any of our content, then by setting up a 301 redirect, we can forward visitors and Google’s robots to the old one, from a URL that no longer exists. And if we've already deleted it, then you need to find the part of the page closest to it, and direct the visitor there. That's how we can take care of it, that wherever a visitor comes from a missing link, no error message, but valuable content awaits.
